Tag Archives: obesity

I wear purple in the form of bruises

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I am writing this post on October 20th, 2010. The date is important because today has been declared Spirit Day by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. For those of you who have not heard of this, Spirit Day (in the words of the promoters) “honors the teenagers who had taken their own lives in recent weeks. But just as importantly, it’s also a way to show the hundreds of thousands of LGBT youth who face the same pressures and bullying, that there is a vast community of people who support them.”

I want to state right off the bat that I am just as horrified and outraged about the suicides that sparked this event as any other sane human being would be. It is also not my intent to offend anyone who may have been bullied or teased because they were a member of the LGBT community.

The above statement is what is known as a disclaimer.

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Healthy Bites: Oh-oh! Not Spaghetti-O’s!

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image courtesy of D.L. via flickr

It’s Friday, and what’s even better is that it is a holiday weekend (at least here in the states)! Whoo Hoo! If your place of business is anything like mine things are probably pretty dead right about now and you’re all sitting around watching the clock in eager anticipation of three days of non-work related bliss. You may also be staring in the face of a whole bunch of eating challenges in the form of grilled meats, chips, and tasty adult beverages.

In order to help you pass the time and perhaps provide you with a little motivation for the upcoming weekend I’ve compiled a list of news items from the last few weeks that you might be interested to know about. This will actually be the first in an ongoing series of Friday afternoon news summary posts, so I hope you enjoy it!

So let’s see what’s going on in the world of health and fitness!

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Michelle Obama is looking for health oriented applications

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While the First Lady of the United States of America has no official title or responsibilities, it has become tradition for the women in this arguably influential role to associate themselves with a humanitarian cause during their husbands administration. In the past few decades we have seen examples of this in Laura Bush’s efforts in support of womens’ rights and childhood literacy, Hillary Clinton’s push for Health Care reform, and (perhaps most famously) Nancy Reagan and her Just Say No anti-drug campaign. First Lady Michelle Obama is no exception to this tradition, and she’s taken up the fight against what many feel is an increasingly dangerous threat to our overall health as a nation – childhood obesity.

According to statistics from the Center for Disease Control, the number of children who are overweight to the point of obesity has increased dramatically since 1980. The percentage of children aged 12 to 19 who fell into this extremely unhealthy weight range (generally considered to be 50 pounds or more overweight) increased from 5% to a stunning 17.6% in 2006, more than tripling the 1980 numbers. Unsurprisingly, research has shown that nearly 80% of children who are obese between the ages of 10 and 15 continue to hold that unhappy distinction into adulthood. With obesity being linked to serious life threatening diseases such as Type II Diabetes and Heart Disease, it is clear that this trend is not only bad for our well-being as a nation but that it is also puts a strain on our already financially strapped health care system.

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Too Fat To Fly?

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via @thatkevinsmith on Twitpic

There’s been a bit of news floating around recently that I have, frankly, been hesitant to comment on here despite the fact that is probably one of the more relevant topics in recent events when it comes to our target demographic. For those of you who are unaware of what, exactly, I’m talking about (and bless you for having the ability to somehow avoid every major news outlet for the last week) – Kevin Smith (director of the highly acclaimed independent film Clerks) recently caused quite a stir on Twitter when he posted about being removed from a flight on Southwest Airlines because he was, well…Too fat.

The story is, honestly, considerably more detailed than that. If you’re interested in all the details you can hear them directly from Mr. Smith himself on his Smodcast web site. You can also see the two official responses from Southwest over on their Nuts About Southwest blog.

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Enjoying your retirement

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makelessnoise via Flickr

Healthy living doesn’t come easy for many people. In fact, for a large number of us I dare say it would qualify as “work.” You have to pay attention to what you eat and how much; make sure you take your vitamins; drink enough fluids; exercise; and get enough rest. If you aren’t consciously adjusting your lifestyle to fit your needs, you can be assured you’ll gain weight as you age. (Yes, even you whipper snappers who love to rub in the fact that you can eat “whatever you want” and not gain a pound). Modern living doesn’t include the kind of rigorous activity that kept many generations before us trim, and compensating for that can really start to feel like a full-time job. Which, as most people will agree, gets old.

Sometimes you just need to take a vacation from your job, and we all look forward to one day being able to retire altogether. Retirement from the weight loss and exercise job, though, would undoubtedly lead to weight gain. With obesity being the cause of any number of health problems, one would imagine that putting on the pounds during your golden years (when your health is already on the decline simply due to the aging process) would be a bad thing.

Well, maybe not so much.

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Quit smoking, get diabetes

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Image courtesy of m.a.r.c. on flickr

Ok, seriously…Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up in the air and give in to the inevitable tide of “nothing you do is good for you anymore.” Seems like every time we get our heads around the right way towards healthy living someone has to come along and throw a monkey wrench in the works. It seems as though the list of food and drink you should or should not consume fluctuates wildly week to week, and sometimes the exercise du jour turns out to be more damaging to your body than beneficial. It’s maddening!

One thing we can all agree on, though, is that smoking is bad for you and that if you smoke quitting the habit is probably the best thing you can do for your health.

Right?

Not so fast, sparky.

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Those wacky New Yorkers are at it again

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Some of you may recall the somewhat unconventional tactics used by the New York City health commissioner in the war against obesity. Not only have they put laws into place that require chain restaurants to post calorie information on their menus, they have banned the use of trans fats in food production. Once they had those rules in place they started a fairly graphic advertising campaign against sugary drinks that showed a stream of fat being poured out of a bottle.  9DNZY6EMJZ6W

On the off chance that you Big Apple residents didn’t get the message the first time, though, the office of the health commissioner is back with a brand new ad.

And it’s worse.

It’s a video.

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Computer users more likely to be overweight

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Image courtesy of Manuel Cernuda

Image courtesy of Manuel Cernuda

I stumbled across an interesting article over at MSNBC.com this morning while I was doing my daily scan through the numerous feeds I follow. Apparently some scientists over in Australia did a bit of research and came to the startling conclusion that people who spent more than five hours a week using a computer were two and a half times more likely to be obese than people who did not use computers at all.

I understand that next they are going to try and sort out once and for all whether or not that water stuff is actually wet.

In all seriousness, though, this article is yet another piece of information we have confirming what is a rather unfortunate truth for those of us who spend most of our day working and playing in front of a glowing box. Namely, if you’re a heavy computer user you’re considerably more likely to be fat. (In all fairness the same pretty much holds true for any sedentary activity, but there aren’t a lot of people I know who get paid to watch television all day.) We could get into the whole chicken and egg argument about whether computer users are predisposed towards obesity, but the whys and wherefores really do not change the facts of the situation.

The question is – What do we do about it?

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New York continues to wage a battle against bulge

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poundsNew York is probably not the first place you think of when it comes to healthy living.  It might be the first place you think of when it comes to pizza, bagels with a shmear, restaurants that are open twenty-four hours a day, street vendors selling hot dogs, and deli sandwiches bigger than your head, but that pretty much proves my point.  California generally holds the reputation as the place where the “granola loving health freaks” live, but as is the case with most stereotypes California and New York are actually pretty similar when it comes to the percentage of the population that is considered obese.  In 2008 approximately 23.1% of the population of California residents fell under the obese classification, while 23.5% of New Yorkers were in the same category.  For those of you that are curious, Colorado actually came in as the leanest state with “only” 18% of their population falling into an obese weight range.

In spite of their reputation as being lovers of unhealthy foods (or, perhaps, because of it) the lawmakers in New York have taken it upon themselves to wage a war against obesity, and their primary targets seem to be soda and restaurant food.  In 2008 the Governor of New York proposed a 15% sales tax on sugary drinks, and a few months later the New York City health commissioner made the case for the same kind of tax to be imposed on a federal level.  New York also ordered all chain restaurants to begin posting calorie counts on their menus and banned the use of trans fats in food production.

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New obesity drug nears approval

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Red Pill/Blue PillOrexigen, a San Diego based pharmaceutical company, announced on Monday that a new drug designed to help patients overcome obesity had passed three clinical trials and was now one step closer to FDA approval.

Contrave combines buproprion and naltrexone, two drugs used to combat a variety of mental afflictions such as depression and addiction, to reduce food cravings in obese patients.  Instead of attempting to create feelings of fullness the drug works to curve the desire to eat simply as a reward or to feel better.

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